JF Mezei wrote on Fri, 23 Mar 2018
02:26:45 -0400:

On 2018-03-21 07:55, Fred J. McCall wrote:

Testing that plumbing does matter.


That's a ground test.


The point being that to get those ground tests done, you put the
components on the rocket.


Yes and no. The plumbing that is part of the tank structure goes on
when the tank goes on. The plumbing that is part of the engine you
can test using the bare engine.


Once they are on, is there a point in removing
them when leaving them on allows for more realistic test flight and more
valid data on ship's behaviour?


No, but there's no point in initially installing engines your test
program is not going to use right away.



I 'argue' no such thing. When are you going to learn to ****ing read,
yammerhead. I argue that ****IF**** they start test flights in 2019,
they will do so with a full up vehicle. I also think that's all going
to slide. Musk tends to be very optimistic about schedules.


And I was asking about what could realistically be ready by 2019. You
said that it would be a fully fitted ship. I said that wasn't realistic.


No, you were asserting that they would keep the test in 2019 and go
with a 'dog and pony show vehicle'. You further asserted that
everyone (including Elon Musk) is wrong and that said 'dog and pony
show' vehicle will include vacuum engines, even though the first test
points don't require them.

Read this again, since you apparently still don't have it. I argue
that ****IF**** they start test flights in 2019, they will do so with
a full up vehicle.


If you say first flight will be fully fitted but will likely slip, then
we aren't talking about same thing.


Well, yeah, we are.


I was talking about a first flight in 2019 having to choose priority on
what would be on the ship because not realistic to have everything
already done by then.


Again, you don't seem to understand how test programs work. You seem
to want to believe that the test is fixed in time and they just test
with whatever they have at the moment. That's poppycock and not how
testing works. If there is a 'first flight' in 2019, it will be of an
essentially 'full up' vehicle. The 'what can be ready by then'
question you claim to be asking about is simply answered. *IF* the
test program starts then, the vehicle is ready then. If the vehicle
is NOT ready then, THE TEST PROGRAM DOESN'T START THEN.

Get how that works now?



That's what Musk is proposing. I think the date will move. You think
they'll do a dog and pony show that means nothing because that's just
what you need to distract your engineers with when schedules are
aggressive.


The dog an pony show may be what is needed to kill SLS and send that
money to SpaceX to help fund a real Mars mission which SLS would never do.


One more time. Read this slowly. Call over some friends to explain
it to you. BFR AND BFR SPACESHIP DO ****NOT**** COMPETE WITH SLS. A
dog and pony show is certainly not going to kill an ongoing program.
Again, read this slowly and have a few friends explain it to you.
FALCON HEAVY (AND SUPER HEAVY) ARE WHAT COMPETE WITH SLS. FALCON
HEAVY HAS ALREADY FLOWN, YET SLS ISN'T CANCELLED.

*** FIGURE IT OUT FROM THERE, YAMMERHEAD!!!!! ***


I don't claim to know what is going on behind the scenes. But Elon Musk,
despite leaving Trump's commitee, still has communications with him, and
it should be easy for Musk to convince the idiot at 1600 Pennsylvania
that his BFR/BFS is at a more advanced stage of construction and testing
than SLS and that Trump should kill SLS and focus on helping SpaceX.


See above. Read it again. Have someone explain it to you AGAIN. BFR
AND BFR SPACESHIP DO ****NOT**** COMPETE WITH SLS. FALCON HEAVY (AND
SUPER HEAVY) ARE WHAT COMPETE WITH SLS. FALCON HEAVY HAS ALREADY
FLOWN, YET SLS ISN'T CANCELLED.

*** FIGURE IT OUT FROM THERE, YAMMERHEAD!!!!! ***

Just in case you think I'm mistaken about that, LOOK AT THE ****ING
NUMBERS.

SLS Block 1: 70 tonnes to LEO, 28 tonnes to escape velocity
SLS Block 1B: 105 tonnes to LEO, 39.1 tonnes to TLI, 31.7 tonnes to
TMI
SLS Block 2: 130 tonnes to LEO, 50 tonnes to TLI, 35 tonnes to TMI

Falcon Heavy (Reusable): 30 tonnes to LEO, 8 tonnes to GEO
Falcon Heavy (Expendable): 63.8 tonnes to LEO, 26.7 tonnes to LEO,
16.8 tonnes to TMI.

So what you see there is that an expendable Falcon Heavy is about the
same capability of SLS Block 1. A Falcon Super Heavy (four side
boosters) would about double the Falcon Heavy numbers (according to
Musk), which makes it more capable in expendable mode than SLS Block
2. THERE is your competition for SLS.

BFR as a fully reusable vehicle is 150 tonnes to LEO or 150 tonnes to
almost anywhere, since it can be refueled on orbit. If you're willing
to expend the booster it's 250 tonnes to LEO. Obviously, this is a
system that is almost twice as capable as SLS Block 2, thus the two do
NOT compete.


--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn